


Djinn Song

by Interrobam



Category: Aladdin (1992)
Genre: Backstory, Community: disney_kink, Fables - Freeform, Free Will, Gen, Genie/Djinn, Morality, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Origins, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobam/pseuds/Interrobam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mother.” Jasmine's voice was eager, pressing, on the last afternoon of her mother's life. “Tell me of Djinn.”</p><p>“Curious child.” The woman's voice was sticky with the black phlegm of her illness, but also with affection for her only child. Her land was lucky to have such an heir. “Very well. I shall sing you the song of the Djinn.”</p><p>And this is the song the girl was sung.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Djinn Song

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Brief mention of domestic abuse.
> 
> Written for the Disney Animated Kink Meme. "The Creator" is not meant to be representative of any specific deity.
> 
> “Panguian” = A Sultan's wife  
> "Djinn" = The more traditional spelling of genie  
> “Djinni” = The singular form of “Djinn”

“Mother.” Jasmine's voice was eager, pressing, on the last afternoon of her mother's life. The Panguian lay placid upon her plush bed, sweet smoke haloing her dark, shining hair. Her eyes opened slowly, shifting to her daughter's earnest face. “Tell me of Djinn.” She sighed with crowded, weakened lungs, staring deep into the wet eyes of her most precious, her only child.

“Jafar is wise and traveled. He shall tell you.” Jasmine pursed her lips, stomping angrily upon the floor. She was unsatisfied.

“But he won't mother! He tells me it is not my concern.”

“My daughter...”

“Mother. You told me that father loved you for your skill of story.” The child's face was wheedling then, a habit she seemed to have picked up from the cub tiger that was her pet. “Share it with me.” For a long while the room was quiet, and the shifting shadows of the falling sun were the only changes to the dying woman's face.

“Curious child.” The Panguian's voice was sticky with the black phlegm of her illness, but also with affection for her strong-willed daughter. Her land was lucky to have such an heir. “Very well. I shall sing you the song of the Djinn.”

And this is the song the girl Jasmine was sung.

On the first of all days humans were formed from the clay of the earth, and Djinn from a smokeless, vicious flame that burned within it's core. This is why we are people of the soil, my child. It is our mother's flesh: it feeds and waters us, clothes us. We were made from the most beautiful land, made so lovingly and with such perfect detail. All of the peoples of the earth look upon The Creator, and The Creator looks upon us: all loving. The Djinn, as creatures made of fire, are beautiful as well: all in shades of reds and blues. They are far more potent than we. The Creator made them as their own people, but their purpose was unlike ours. We are deigned to create, to think, to dance, to paint and sing. We are the soul of a resplendent earth, and the stars call all of humanity to reach our collective pinnacle: both body and soul. Remember that, my child. It is your due to The Creator to resist any person who might try to smother your talents. Hear in this song that the punishment for squandering what is good in you is dire. 

The Djinn were given the skies as their territory, and with this they were delighted, for the sky is longer than the earth and is matched to their flesh. They could bring and halt rain, could set the clouds ablaze with the setting sun. The wind was slaved to their dance. The Djinn had powers beyond the sky as well: these clever people could bend the stars and alter the fates. They were bound to The Creator, under orders to use their skills for the benefit of humankind. The Creator is good: all-loving, all-powerful, but not all-seeing, but not able to see every aspect of creation. The Djinn were given bodies of flame and a life of leisure so that they could see obscured pain and heal its wound in substitute. Yet we were permitted then, as we still are, to have follies and faults. We can die by our own foolishness or the foolishness of others: our wills are free. The Djinn staved droughts and famines, diverted lighting, breathed life into the stillborn. They touched only the cruelty of our nature, not the nature of our cruelty. For without the untempered will that allows us cruelty we would never know mercy. Without the chance to suffer and fail we could never create such divine works of art and science as we do today. The Creator expects the best of us, is eager to see our accomplishments, and thus the Djinn were the quiet cushion that gave great people the lifespan and opportunity to be great, the good to be good, the simple to be simple, the wicked to be wicked. Always remember this my child. Though The Creator loves you, your battles are your own, your will your own: it is a blessing and a terrible danger. Life is a brief flicker of a thing, there is nothing before or after it. It must be treasured, it must be spent so that those given life after you can build upon a sturdy foundation. Hear in this song that the things you can alter in this world are mighty indeed.

The Djinn performed as humble servants, some more mischievous than others, for a thousand years. The Djinn do not die, instead they learn from all mistakes and all victories they have had, they tune their subtleties and fetishes to sharpened precision. A Djinni dead would spell a hundred years of knowledge blown out like a lamp in the wind, and The Creator weeps at the loss of progress. So it was true that, for a thousand winters and a thousand springs, humanity and the Djinn were peacefully entangled. Yet misfortune, as tricky and flighty as a bird, interceded in this harmony. For there was one Djinni, whose name has been lost to time, who was afflicted with sloth and arrogance. This Djinni shall be called, until our language too is buried under the years, The Proud One. The Proud One who once lived above us, who once lived in this very sky, tired of its duties to the weather. Looking down upon our people, it decided to shed its Djinn's tail and walk among them. It came to a village, ancienter even than our palace's records, and entered its gates. Once in the streets, The Proud One came upon a weeping woman, her knees bowed into the dirt and her hands over her face, a man at her feet with bloody clothes.

“Woman, why do you weep?” The Proud One asked.

“My son has died.” The weeping woman replied.

“How did your son die?”

“He died cloaked in drink, in a fight over property.”

“How foolish a human.” The Proud One said, and it pulled death from the boy so that he rose, alive. The Proud One walked further into the village, curious that there was suffering of humans removed from famine and plague, and it came upon a man with his head bowed.

“Man, why do you bow your head in disgrace?” The Proud One asked.

“My family has been shamed, and I as the head am doubly so.” The bent man replied.

“What shames your family?”

“My daughter has refused her suitor.”

“How foolish a human.” The Proud One said, and it twisted the fates so that the girl did indeed love her suitor. The Proud One walked bitterly through the square of the town, angry at the folly of humans, and came across a couple comforting each other.

“Man, woman, why do you despair?” The Proud One asked with exasperation.

“We have lost our only daughter.” The couple replied.

“How did you lose your daughter?”

“She is in love with a boy far below her station. We forbid their marriage, and she slayed herself.”

“How foolish a human.” The Proud One said, and it restored life to the girl as it took her love for the boy. As The Proud One returned to the sky, it thought bitingly that altering the waters and the winds was no way to make humans happy. Once into the clouds, it thought long and hard to its experiences. It bent the weather and watched the earth. It began to form an idea. A long while later it told the other Djinn of its journeys. It told them of the weeping woman, the shamed man, the mourning couple. He told them that their tasks would be much simpler, much briefer, if they bound together their magic and made it so that children would love only the choice of their parents and that all humans would never die by human hands. A second Djinni spoke, and it said that the truest solution was simpler yet. Do not be tricked by these faineant words, my child. Hear in this song that the path that is easiest to walk will never gain you the highest peak, the full of your potential.

“We must make it so that there is no love among humans, and no death either. We shall tell them where to plant and when to harvest, we shall give them the plans of their buildings and the lilt of their songs. They shall be much healthier through this route.” The second Djinni proclaimed.

“A clever solution, and far less difficult to follow than mine!” The Proud One responded joyously.

“I doubt this plan.” A third Djinni, whose name like all of the others' has been lost, spoke. “The will of the humans was made free, and it must remain free. The Creator decrees it.”

“The creator does not have eyes for all things, we see far more and far deeper. The Creator is blinded by a foggy gaze to think humans fortunate with such freedom. They would be in a better sort enslaved.” The Proud One argued “Let us vote.”

The vote was strongly for the plan of the second Djinni, and the third Djinni felt bound by blood to aid the others. Know my child that this is the reason that the third Djinni suffers also. Hear in this story that is is far better to stand alone for justice than to stand in a crowd for injustice.

The Creator, all the while this meeting was occurring, had come to look upon the selfsame village The Proud One had visited: for there was a great despair emanating from it. There could be found deep suffering, so The Creator took humble form to uncover it. The Creator, entering the border of the village, came upon a weeping woman, her knees bowed into the dirt and her hands over her face.

“Woman, why do you weep?” The Creator asked.

“A Djinni restored life to my son, but he only returned to the brawl that had killed him. The other man is now dead. My son only drinks and quarrels. He does not know my face.” The weeping woman replied.

“Poor child.” The Creator said, and gently laid the boy down in death. The Creator walked further into the village, deeply troubled that a Djinni would be so cruel, and came upon a man sobbing with his head bowed.

“Man, why do you bow your head in sorrow?” The Creator asked.

“My daughter did not love her suitor, so a Djinni changed her heart. Yet her suitor is cruel, and beats her so that her bones break, and she will not leave him.” The sobbing man replied.

“Poor child.” The Creator said, and twisted the fates so that the girl had the strength once more to leave her husband. Furious at the Djinni who would cause such suffering through such arrogance, The Creator did not alight to the clouds that moment only because there was a weeping boy in the road.

“Boy, why do you despair?” The Creator asked tenderly.

“My lover no longer has affection for me. Worse yet, she does not paint or laugh as she once did, she is as a hollow shell. Her light has gone and I fear for her.” The boy replied.

“Poor child.” The Creator looked into the stars, restored love to the girl, and with great pain laid her down in death once more. The Creator rose to the sky, to summon the Djinn, only to find the people of flame already in council. When told of their plans The Creator grew furious, and told the Djinn of the agony already wrought upon the humans, yet The Proud One said that this new design would prevent suffering. For there cannot be despair where there is no joy.

“Creator, how can you hold their pleasure over ours?” The Proud One laughed. “We are made of flame and light and they of filthy dirt, playing with primitive objects.” The Creator, shamed by the behavior of the Djinn, knew that there was nothing to persuade them.

The Creator could not bear to destroy the Djinn, a people carved out with such loving detail. Instead they were each bound to one of the common, human objects felt despicable by them. Oil lamps and stools, pieces of cord and common flutes. In these vessels the Djinn were stored, and enslaved as they had wished to enslave others. Human will controls their freedom, as they would have controlled human will. A Djinni may only be freed from this captivation when they have repented, in the very ember of their soul, for believing ill of the freedom of the human will. Yet even in a repentant state, they need the word and mercy of their captor to become unshackled. You see my child, a human keen enough to uncover the secrets of these enlivened, common objects can glean three wishes. A Djinni can no longer bring the dead to life, nor give one's love to another, nor grant additional boons. These skills were stricken from them when they rebelled, for the safety of all peoples. Yet even with these limitations one must be cautious with a Djinni. They can twist words and tint with darkness any human's self-serving wishes. Remember, my child, that it is easy to be blinded by your own desires to the needs of others. Hear in this song that your own happiness may come from the path least selfish.

The Creator was pained that we humans would suffer from the rescindence of the Djinn's protection, but acted with much faith that we would overcome. My child, this trust was well placed. We have striven, and suffered, and ultimately triumphed over so many tragedies. The droughts and famines, the plagues and stillbirths come easily now. Yet is is true that we do not need the Djinn to discover and to create, to fall in love. Hear in this song that The Creator, knowing your capabilities better than even you do, trusts that you can overcome. Hear in the Djinn song that you can overcome anything my most precious, most clever child.

Jasmine heard these words, and sat for a long time in contemplation. She felt that there were edges of this story that she could not yet touch, and perhaps would never touch but for three hundred nights of contemplation upon them.

“It is a beautiful story mother.” She whispered into the darkness. Lonesome and pensive, she put her small hand upon her mother's.

The Panguian's skin was as cold as the moon.


End file.
